View report page

34
WATER SUPPLY.
During the prolonged frost of January, February, and part
of March, many of the houses were without any water supply.
The Sanitary Inspector, Mr. Ashdown, made a careful examination
of, and submitted an elaborate report upon the
depths of the mains and service pipes below the surface; and
the houses that were without any water supply, and the time
that this state continued in such house.
It was found that in many places the depths of the mains
below the surface was less than two feet, and in some less than
one foot.
Many of the houses were without any water supply for
several weeks, in many as long as seven or eight weeks, and in
a few nine or ten weeks.
In this climate provision ought to be made for frost, considering
the great inconvenience and danger to the public, not
only during the time it lasts, but afterwards by burst water
pipes and mains. A small leakage may not be found out for
a long time. If this is in a main or service pipe underground
Avhen the water supply of that part is turned off the sewage
from a faulty drain or sewer and the polluted soil may
be drawn into the pipes so that the supply afterwards is
contaminated.
Such leakage has often led to epidemics of typhoid lever,
and I am of the opinion that much of the summer diarrhoeal
mortality is due in part to the same cause.
In this District last year the deaths from diarrhoeal diseases
were twice the number of the preceding year. In London, in